Associate Director - Design Assurance & Product Management - Independent Design Assurance

Overview

Lead GSK's independent Design Assurance practice, an eight-role team, as the most senior independent reviewer in Cyber Architecture and Solutions. Own the assurance methodology, review standards and assurance register, and manage reviewer capacity against demand, covering pre-production architecture review, technical consultation and BAU design assurance.

What you'll do

• Lead the Design Assurance practice of eight and own its capability plan across every Cyber Architecture and Solutions domain, including Cryptography and PQC and AI Security.
• Issue binding go/no-go determinations on tools before production, and own the consequences when a programme with a committed date does not get the answer it wanted.
• Approve the assurance methodology, review standards and the Critical, High, Medium and Low classification scheme, and defend both under audit.
• Verify against architecture standards set elsewhere in Cyber Architecture and Solutions and write none of them.
• Manage reviewer capacity and tiering so high-risk designs get full review and low-risk change moves through pattern-based self-attestation with sampling.
• Assure vendor-delivered designs to exactly the same standard as internally delivered ones, including configuration handed over under the managed service model.
• Own pre-production architecture review, technical consultation and BAU design assurance across the estate.
• Feed recurring findings back to the architecture domains as standards gaps rather than reviewing the same defect repeatedly.
• Own assurance throughput, turnaround, first-time-pass and defect escape metrics, and defend them under challenge.
• Lead the practice's response to internal audit and regulatory inspection, including evidence that reviews operated rather than merely existed.
• Lead your team in using approved AI tools to improve productivity and ways of working, role-modelling responsible use and following GSK's Responsible AI, privacy and security requirements.

What you'll need

• 15+ years in cyber security, including leading technical or specialist teams, with domain focus on independent Design Assurance across all Cyber Architecture and Solutions security domains, including Cryptography and AI Security.
• Experience leading an independent design assurance practice: methodology, review standards and assurance register, issuing binding go/no-go decisions on tools pre-production and in BAU.
• Experience protecting independence from architecture under programme pressure: verifying against standards owned elsewhere, never writing them, and assuring vendor-delivered designs to the same standard as internal ones.
• Experience sponsoring automation of review intake, evidence capture, drift checks and reporting, managing reviewer capacity against demand and feeding recurring findings back as standards gaps.
• Experience assuring AI-enabled tools and agentic solutions against AI security standards, including the evidence standard an AI-assisted review must still meet, and using AI to accelerate review and evidence capture.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice to have

• Architecture literacy to challenge senior architects' designs without owning the standards.
• Evidencing assurance to internal audit and regulators, including GxP documentation standards, using automated evidence capture and reporting.
• Developing and leading a team of senior reviewers and analysts.
• Executive stakeholder influence, holding a contested finding with senior leaders.
• Experience defending an assurance opinion to an audit committee or a regulator when the first line disagreed with it.

Details

• Location: Bengaluru Luxor North Tower.